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There are two important, indeed, fundamental questions
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you have to answer in life.
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The first is, is there a God? Specifically a moral and judging creator.
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The second is, are people
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basically good? Your answer to the second question
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will shape just about all of your moral social and political views
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even more than whether you believe in God.
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That's why a believer and an atheist who have the same views about human nature
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almost always have the same social
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and political views. Let me give you some examples.
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You've probably heard the phrase "poverty causes crime."
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If you believe that people are basically good, you are likely to believe that
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poverty
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or bigotry or some other outside force
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causes people to commit violent crime. That's the only way you can make sense
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of the fact that some people commit crimes
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despite their basically good nature. Something drove them to it.
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But if you don't believe people are basically good, you're far more likely to
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blame the criminals themselves
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not outside forces for their actions.
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One more example. In a society where it is believed that people are basically good
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parents and society don't devote great efforts
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toward making good people. After all, if we're born good
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why do you have to teach goodness? On the other hand
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those who don't believe we are born all that good understand that parents and
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society
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have to undertake major efforts to make children
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into good adults.
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Okay then, are people basically good? As I will show given humanities history
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the answer should be obvious. Of course human nature
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isn't basically good. Now this doesn't mean that people are basically bad,
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we are born with real potential to do good, but we are not
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basically good. Take babies. Babies are lovable
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and innocent but they're not good, they're entirely self-centered
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as they have to be in order to survive. "I want mommy,"
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"I want milk," "I want to be held," "I want to be comforted,"
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and if you do not do all these things immediately I will ruin your life.
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That's not goodness, that's narcissism.
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We are born narcissists.
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preoccupied with number one, ourselves.
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And if you've ever worked with kids you know how cruel, how bullying they can be.
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And don't parents have to tell their child tens of thousands of times
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"Say thank you."
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Now why is that? If we're naturally good wouldn't feeling and expressing gratitude come naturally?
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And then there is the historical record.
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Evils, huge evils,
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affecting much of the human race have been the norm.
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Here goes, just a few examples.
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The Ottoman Turks targeted millions of Armenian Christians
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for death during World War I.
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The German Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews, two out of every three European Jews
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including more than a million children and babies.
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The Soviet Communist regime slaughtered about 5 million Ukrainians
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and about 25 million other innocents. The Chinese Communists killed about 70 million Chinese
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and enslaved the rest of the Chinese people.
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The North Korean Communist regime has built what one can only call
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the world's largest concentration camp. Most of North Korea.
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in postcolonial Congo in the decade between 1998 and 2008
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over five million people were murdered
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and tens if not hundreds of thousands of women raped.
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Of course before that,
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about 10 million Africans were kidnapped and made slaves in the European slave trade
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and another 10 to 18 million Africans were enslaved
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by Arab slave traders.
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And let me ask you this, if people are basically good why does every civilization have so many laws
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to control human behavior?
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Knowing all this, those who believe that people are basically good have simply
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made a decision to believe that
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and ignore all the evidence.
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Why do people commit evil? Because it's easy to,
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because it's tempting to, and yes
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because it often accords with human nature.
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That is why figuring out how to make good people
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is the single most important project in all of human life.
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But first you have to believe it's necessary.
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I'm Dennis Prager.
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Join Prager University: subscribe to our YouTube channel
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